Who makes the best frozen fries? We put nine brands to the test

Chicago Tribune's Food and Dining team tasted and ranked the best frozen French fries available at many common grocery stores.

(Chris Walker)

Bill DaleyChicago Tribune

French fries always seem to taste better when dining out, don’t they? Maybe it’s because the restaurant, whether fast or fancy, knows that fries taste best golden, crispy and aromatic straight from a deep fat bath. Achieving that restaurant flavor with that crispness and aroma at home can be a challenge, especially as so many of us choose the oven over a deep fryer (if we have one).

You can make fries from scratch (check out this recent how-to from Diane Rossen Worthington), but frozen french fried potatoes are an easy alternative to getting fries on the plate at home. All the cutting and peeling, if any, has been done already. Fries now are often sold in 2-pound packages, a size ideal for families, according to Chris Dallas, owner of HarvesTime Foods in Chicago.

So, what’s a frozen french fry? The United States Department of Agriculture defines “frozen french fried potatoes” as being prepared from “mature, sound, white or Irish potatoes (Solanum tuberosum).” The spuds are washed, sorted, trimmed, “may or may not be cut into pieces.” The potatoes are then “processed in accordance with good commercial practice which includes deep frying or blanching in suitable fat or oil.” The fries are then frozen and stored.

Food & Dining sampled nine brands of frozen french fries. I went for the basic “straight cut” fries when I could, the skinnier shoestrings when I couldn’t. Although Dallas said crinkle cut fries were a best-seller at his Lincoln Square market because they are crunchier, I didn’t want the shape to get in the way of the tasting — this was to be all about the fries and their flavor and the degree of crispness plain old straight cut fries could achieve in the oven.

All of the brands I purchased offered instructions for baking in the oven. Indeed, some brands only offered directions for the oven. Others offered instructions for deep frying and pan frying. One even made mention of the electric skillet and the toaster oven.

The frozen french fries were purchased at a Jewel-Osco supermarket in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market locations near the Chicago Tribune’s downtown location, a Target store in the city’s Uptown neighborhood and at HarvesTime Foods. I did not buy membership-only club brands because I wanted fries the general public had a reasonable chance of buying. Prices listed are what I paid.

For this tasting, seven brands were cooked in a 425-degree oven (six brands called for 425, one brand called for 420); two other brands were cooked at 450 degrees as called for in the package directions. The fries looked underdone to the Tribune test kitchen staff, so an extra two minutes was added to the baking time for all. A few brands called for spraying the baking sheet with oil or lining the baking sheet with parchment. That was done.

This was a blind tasting, meaning tasters didn’t know which fry was which. Each participant in the tasting was asked to rate each french fry brand on appearance, aroma, texture and flavor. The fries were served as-is with no added salt and no ketchup.

I can’t speak for all tasters, but now I know why ketchup is such a popular condiment with fries. All of these brands cried out for that distinctive savory touch ketchup provides.

As temperatures drop, our craving for comforting, hearty dishes heats up. Appropriately, Food & Dining is spending October hunting down Chicago's best noodle dishes, from Italian pastas to Japanese ramen and everything in between. Follow along as we unveil our picks. We'll add a new noodle each day of the month.